870 
Sttpplement to the “ Tropical Agriculturist. 
[June 1 , 1898 * 
15 parts by weight of water, should disintegrate 
about 15 parts by weight of bones by two or three 
hours’ boiling. 
If the bones be allowed to remain in the caustic 
liquor, even without boiling, they will, in the 
course of a week or so, become disintegrated. 
Another method of softening bones is by mixing 
in heaps with quicklime and loam. A layer of 
loam 4-in. deep is made, and on this is placed a 
layer, about 6-in. deep of bones, and above this 
a layer 3-in. deep of quicklime. The layers of 
loam, bones, and lime are repeated in succession 
until the heap reaches a convenient height, when 
it is finally covered with a thick laj'er of earth. 
Holes are then bored in the heap from the top, 
and water poured down them to slake the lime. 
The mass will become hot, and remain so for two 
or three months, after which the bones will be 
friable, and the whole heap may be mixed up, and 
is ready for the ground. 
BUTTEK DIEECT FROM VEGETABLES. 
Butter without the aid of a cow is what 
Willard G. Day, an inventor, of Baltimore, Md., 
promises. Electricity is the chief agent Mr. Day 
proi>oses to employ in the production of butter 
directly from the vegetables which form the food 
of cattle whose milk is used in the churn. Mr. 
Day first discovered that the peculiar character- 
istic traits of different varieties of butter, cheese, 
etc., were owing to general causes. One was the 
kind of food bn which the cow was fed ; the other 
was the kind of microbe nourished at and by 
the roots of the plant which furnished the food 
to the cow. Armed with these two secrets (says 
the Neio York Herald) Mr; Day began his work, 
which consisted in extracting and then assem- 
bling artificially the same products which are 
usually brought about by nature. He succeeded 
in producing from the vegetable kingdom oils 
which differed very slightly from those of the 
animal kingdom. Having got thus far, the next 
step was to change the vegetable oil bj^ giving it 
the same chemical constitution as that possessed 
by the animal article desired — in other words, to 
make the animal butter oil out of corn, grass, and 
similar vegetable substances. The secret in this 
part of the process Mr. Day found to consist in 
the fact that animal and vegetable carbohydrates 
strongly resemble each other. The differences 
which are found in oils are nearly all owing to 
the nitrogenous sheaths in which the globules of 
oil are contained. Thus to this sheath is due 
the tallowy smell of tallow, the mutton or smell 
of mutton, as well as all the rank odours of many 
vegetable oils. When oils are e.xtracted by heat 
or the mechanical violence of pressure, tlie dele- 
terious nitrogenous characteristics of the glouble 
sheaths are imparted to the oil gloubles them- 
selves, and no art can separate afterward. Here 
comes in the great discovery in the use of the 
electric light. Mr. Day found that when these 
oils and fats were subjected to the radient energy 
of powerful electric light, the nitrogenous sheatlis 
were shrivelled and their contents put in a 
condition to be milked out or extracted by a 
gentle pressure witliout being contaminated by 
the characteristics of the animal or plant itself. 
Another effect was also produced. Whatever 
microbe was associated with any particular oil 
or fat was killed by the actinic power of (he 
light, thus leaving the article free from any of 
its native microbes and ready to be used as a 
culture medium for any desired microbe. Among 
the microbes destroyed by the light are those 
which cause putrefaction and decay, and so the 
articles acted on by the light are readily {ireserved 
as long as they are protected from new invasions 
of nature’s hosts of destroyers. As a result, the 
various kinds of butter, cheese, etc., made under 
the Day processes show most remarkable keeping 
powers, far surpassing those produced bj^ the 
old-fashioned methods. For the same reason the 
new articles are not affected by any diseases such 
as tuberculosis and typhoid fever, which may be 
carried and transmitted in the milk of cows, as 
well as by contamination from barnyard asso- 
ciation. 
